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Whether you are looking to retain your current customer base or just shorten the average handle time, it really goes without saying that every step a call center takes to improve is geared towards improving customer experience and reducing customer effort. When it comes to reducing effort, probably one of the most important metrics a call center should focus on is first call resolution (FCR.)There is a significant difference between a world-class caliber call center and an average call center. A call center must achieve 80 percent or higher to attain world-class FCR call center status. This typically means an average of 1.2 calls or less is needed to resolve a customer’s inquiry or issue. In this day and age, call centers with an FCR performance level of 67 percent are considered to be well below average, meaning it takes 1.5 calls in order to resolve a customer’s inquiry or problem.
Take Out the Guess Work As Training Manager for Fused Solutions, LLC. I am lucky to have SpiceCSM at my disposal. It takes the guess work out of the process. I am able to teach agents to think critically and focus on customer service. Agents don’t have to know all the answers, just how to find them. Spice CSM not only provides them with an innovative and intuitive Guided Process, but serves as a memory bank.
Your company’s approach to handling customer issues in the call center has a significant impact on loyalty and future business, so it’s essential to develop agents wisely. Training them in your company mission, products and “soft skills” is a great foundation to build upon, but you must also ensure the team masters the array of technology that assists them on the job. Still, multiple disconnected platforms are cumbersome, requiring longer training for agents. The better path to preparing new hires is to integrate the disparate systems and establish a more streamlined technology landscape. Call center agents need a wide array of tools for every customer encounter Powerful solutions enable your agents to respond to customer issues efficiently and effectively, thereby maintaining valuable goodwill.
Your call center agents are an extension of your company during a customer service call, so it’s essential to hire top talent. Not only must these people handle troubleshooting and support issues, but they’re also responsible for building the goodwill that can lead to future sales. Soft skills and an ability to master the required tools are top criteria companies must consider, but there are other factors. Therefore, organizations must take a best practices approach to the hiring process in order to properly leverage call center operations. Develop an Agent Persona
Customers balk at the idea of calling a company for help. They know they’ll be put through a system of automation, and most likely end up talking to someone who isn’t completely able to help them.
According to the 2011 Avaya Consumer Preference Report, 49 percent of surveyed consumers felt that call centers and customer service centers provided poor customer support. We understand that your business is always striving to improve client satisfaction and working to diminish this nation-wide statistic of dissatisfaction. Dynamic agent scripting is an effective way to ensure that your customers' needs are being met each time they speak to an agent on the phone. This scripting software allows your agents to respond to customers appropriately, and prepares the agents for each customer interaction. The benefits of dynamic agent scripting are numerous. The three main areas that it proves most effective are its dynamic programming capabilities, its ability to create a unified approach among agents, and its advance scripting option.
By their very nature, call centers are businesses that use lots of different processes to achieve their goals. Because of this, the concept of business process management (BPM) is extremely applicable to use in a call center environment.
The advancement of technology has brought with it many great benefits for those who operate and manage call centers. Technology allows for the automation of some tedious and repetitive processes that take valuable time away from phone representatives.
Call centers have many different processes that agents have to complete. From entering customer data to handling calls on several different lines, most call center professionals know how to work with multiple kinds of software and hardware systems.
While customers of decades past were often steadfast in their brand loyalty, those days are now just a fond memory. Customers today are led by their wallets, by the level of convenience they are offered and by the quality of customer support they are provided. While a few prestige brands may still attract customer loyalty, for most companies, there is a very real need to be the best and the fastest when it comes to customer service.
3 Ways to Reduce Training Time Using Technology If you really want to reduce training time, we challenge you to look at the technology your agents are using. Is it simple to use? Does it proactively help agents? Does it make their jobs easier? If you didn't answer YES to all of those questions, you could be complicating your training efforts out of the gate due to the technology your agents utilize to manage the customer journey. One of the unsung heroes of SpiceCSM's Business Process/BPM tool is the ability to reduce the amount of time agents need to start producing at the levels of longstanding employees. Typically when bringing new agents onto the team there's a period of training, usually involving some classroom knowledge transfer, exercises, role playing, and a variety of other methods to give the agents resources to solve requests efficiently. Depending on the organization and type of business, this could take anywhere from 1 - 12 weeks, or longer. In higher turnover environments this only exacerbates training challenges and emphasizes the need to make new employees more productive in less time. Here are 3 ways you can utilize technology to help reduce training efforts:
What is iPaaS: Explaining Integration Capabilities What is iPaaS? iPaas is a cloud-based platform that allows businesses to connect their existing systems together. It provides a single interface where users can access their data from across different software platforms. This means they can view information from one application within another without having to switch between them. The platform also makes it easy for people to build new integrations by providing low-code tools that allow connections to be made with external systems.
LCAP - What is a Low-Code Application Platform The vision that SpiceCSM has from our inception was to have an application that provided the tools to customize the user experience easily and orchestrate data without the need for technical expertise. What we've been calling an "Enterprise Application Builder" is now being recognized by leading analysts as a Low-Code Application platform, or LCAP for short.
The best and most complete platform for data integration, case management, and workflow management to help transform your customer journey.
